


And so we set off for a whole new plane

by yrelec



Series: Take this set of keys, Reaper, and you shall have your wealth [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Metaphors, Arthur Finds Out About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Canon Era, Escape, Evil Uther Pendragon (Merlin), M/M, Magic Revealed, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Protective Arthur, Someone Snitches, Uther Finds Out About Merlin's Magic (Merlin)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yrelec/pseuds/yrelec
Summary: Arthur cannot bring himself to speak. He closes his eyes. He looks mad with fright. There’s a trembling in his limbs that speaks of an unnatural force, a bending of a mind like a steel trap beyond limits it has been conditioned to bear. His grip on the door bears resemblance to the clench of a hunting dog’s maw upon the throat of a dying stag. Merlin worries that he will fare no better than the buck.It is not like him to worry about the harm that might befall him. It is unlike him to fear for his life.It is unlike Arthur to be afraid..Merlin's world falls apart at the seams.
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Take this set of keys, Reaper, and you shall have your wealth [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938430
Comments: 6
Kudos: 111





	And so we set off for a whole new plane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rageynerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageynerd/gifts).



> This can be read as a prequel to [_Undertaker_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22802116) or not, I left the open end there deliberately. If I choose to keep expanding upon this universe, this may be subject to change.
> 
> ###### we gay
> 
> I really tested the waters here, coming just shy of fully on medieval speak. Cheeky, I know.

..

It was generally a normal occurrence for the Prince of Camelot to come barging into Gaius’s in search of his manservant. It's a less often occurrence that the interruption happens on an off day, mind you, but that wasn’t what caused the anxious feelings in Merlin. No, the sudden slam of the door and the barreling “ _Merlin!_ ” was often met with annoyance and brief fear. There was always a skim around the room, a _shit, did I hide the book,_ and furtive eye contact with Gaius before Merlin would be grabbed by the collar of his jacket and dragged off to do manual labor. 

This was not such an occasion.

The door to Gaius’s rooms slams open with a resounding crack, but Arthur stalls at the threshold. He carries a crazed look in his eyes. His shoulders heave as if he has sprinted as far as the throne room. Merlin is pinned to the center of the room by his sudden gaze. Gaius isn’t in the castle; he’s in the market and Merlin is trapped like a rabbit in a snare. He is shot through with alarm.

“Is it true?” Arthur gasps. “What curse the maiden has laid bare for all the court to see?”

Merlin sets down the transmutation he had been perfecting. It is dangerous alchemy– it glows silver like the moon’s impious eye– and if found in his hands may lead him straight to the gallows. 

“Which maiden? And what unhallowed truth does she make known?”

Arthur cannot bring himself to speak. He closes his eyes. He looks mad with fright. There’s a trembling in his limbs that speaks of an unnatural force, a bending of a mind like a steel trap beyond limits it has been conditioned to bear. His grip on the door bears resemblance to the clench of a hunting dog’s maw upon the throat of a dying stag. Merlin worries that he will fare no better than the buck.

It is not like him to worry about the harm that might befall him. It is unlike him to fear for his life. 

It is unlike Arthur to be afraid. 

“Go on, sire,” Merlin pleads. It is in this moment that he realizes that the prisoner is not scared of the bite of the executioner’s ax but dreads the moment in the sliver of time before it falls. It seems to stretch on like the taut line of the harrow’s sheet. 

Arthur’s vulnerability is visible in his throat. “She spoke of a most heinous sin… a crime that she had witnessed… an act of magic perpetrated by you.”

The silence shrouds the room. Merlin had known this day would come, known that even with false evidence and a fickle liar's tongue he would be dragged to the pyre in the lower bailey and immolated in the sacred flame so that he may be cleansed of evil. He faces this thought with grim resignation. It will be of no use to him to withhold anymore from the crown prince. He is a man of honor.

“Yes,” he says.

An extraordinary transition writhes upon Arthur’s face. It is not quite fear or anger. He seems to let out the tension in his body as one might empty their soul in preparation for mindfulness like he is ready to welcome the world into his inner self. He has found peace. 

“I did not wish to keep it from you, my lord,” Merlin says. “It is not something you or your father would have taken kindly to.”

“Do not explain your reasoning to me, Merlin. There is no need,” Arthur replies, and Merlin is surprised by the lack of accusation in his voice. He had hoped for less than this, dreaded a whirling fiend of a man with a blade aimed at his corrupted heart.

“You wish to bring me in to the King?” he asks.

Arthur steps forward. Merlin steps back. He rattles the table beside him with his hip and the frantic jostling sends a vial lurching over the side. It is not his molten light– and thank the druids for this small mercy– but an ointment of celandine that smashes to the ground in a silent mockery of the blood that is sure to come. Merlin does not reach out with his magic to halt its descent. What is the use when he will soon be dead?

“No Merlin. He will surely condemn you, and I cannot allow this to happen.”

When Merlin, caught off guard by the unheralded ruse that spills from his prince’s lips, tries to make sense of it all, Arthur ushers in a new spell that locks Merlin in place. “It does not matter to me that you practice this hidden trade, nor that you have kept from me. Listen to the sincerity of my words: I cannot allow my father to kill you.”

“But–”

“We shall speak of this later when we are safe. You must trust me. The lion does not rest until he has devoured his prey; so, too, may we not rest, lest we become caught in his lusting teeth. Merlin, you must make your escape. It soothes my mind to know that the maiden was not lying. With the gift of magic in your hands, freedom is within reach.”

This time, when he strides forward, Merlin does not recoil. They step to meet each other as equals at the center of the room. Hands clasped together, they swear fealty to one another, not in loyal servitude but a bond stronger than blood. Merlin is living as a creature of hope: never in the brightest recesses of his mind could he have imagined such a response. Their eyes meet, understanding burnishing between them as if they were forged from the same metal.

“Let us go,” Merlin says. 

They abscond from the place that has been Merlin’s home for the past lustrum. They lend it little more than a glance before they stalk through the ashlar corridors. Vigilance will keep them alive.

They prepare to debark on the most profound shift of their lives.

_“Then if you will make silver of thy lead, hammer it small and put thereto 3 parts clean powder of alum y calcyned, and medle thaym both together and then take potters clay and medle thereto with as a man medleth spices to paste, and gather all up and tear it and knede it thriftily to the day and make it as a balle, and thene dry it and then llor the have a potte to pirpes or /??? comym down and in ?? fidge of the ?? and put thy ball therein, and make there under a store size and lete it melt down by the ??? of the muffle furnace and the pipes in the bottom and thene lyumell hit again and do therewith as thee did before and do this too and if thy have any portion of the arsenic afore ??? medle perche or mercury sublimed and there shall come there of fyne silver.”_

_Recipe for silver, XVth century_

..

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. A harrow is like a medieval plow. It was one of the first instruments used in the agricultural revolution. Think of it a big hoe pulled along by a horse. It makes furrows in the fields to loosen soil and ameliorate planting.
> 
> 2\. The bailey is sort of the courtyard at the center of medieval castles, where the well is and general things like feasts happen. Uther wouldn't burn Merlin in the town square like an average wizard, because this would admit to him people that he'd been duped for the past 5 years.
> 
> 3\. A lustrum is a period of five years. Lustrum : 5 years :: Decade : 10 years
> 
> ######  chat time 
> 
> And that's that. Big shout out to my main man[ rageynerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageynerd/pseuds/rageynerd) for writing that epic story about the last one. 
> 
> Again, I let this creation run wild for anyone to do with it what they will. It is yours to mangle, maul, and transform into something beautiful. Do they succeed in getting out of the castle alive? Where do they go? What did the maiden see Merlin do? Tag me (duh) and let me look upon the thing of beauty you have managed to forge from this scene.
> 
> Thanks,  
> me.


End file.
